Greetings, users!

July 1st, 2011 - Welcome back to another edition of the news. We've got a few pieces of information to pass along before everyone stateside disappears for the Fourth of July weekend. We start with a brief description of new features added during our release update on Wednesday.

Important stuff to know

Features and changes

Sort community posts by user - We've added navigation options which allow you to more easily sort community entries by poster! The 'Sort by poster' option now appears in the Navigation Strip when you're viewing a community. Roll your mouse over or click 'Filter' on the navigation strip, type in a username, press 'Enter', and voila! You can now view all the posts created by the specified user in the community. Additionally, when you're viewing a community, the menu which appears when you hover over a person's userpic will also include an option to view entries in that community by that poster.

Improved post sharing/promotion functionality - We've incorporated a variety of buttons which can be used by to easily share or promote entries on FaceBook, Google, Twitter, and vKontakte. Additionally, we've included a button which allows other users to donate LiveJournal Tokens to you. Please note, these buttons are not displayed by default. Instead, you can opt to add them to any entry by including the <lj-like> tag.

The default <lj-like> tag will display all available buttons. You may also customize which buttons are displayed in the post. For example, <lj-like buttons="fb,go"> will only include buttons for FaceBook and Google. The two-letter code for each available service is as follows:

Facebook

fb

Google

go

Twitter

tw

vKontakte

vk

LJ Give

lj

In action, using the <lj-like> tag will look like this, depending on the buttons you've selected to show:

AIDS Walk San Francisco

It's sometimes hard to comprehend how much HIV/AIDS has affected the lives of people around the world. Today, there are over 30 million people from all walks of life who are coping with HIV/AIDS related conditions. There's no cure yet but united we can take action against this formidable pandemic. This year, July 17th to be exact, LiveJournal staff members in San Francisco will be participating in AIDS Walk San Francisco. We invite you to join the cause! There are a couple ways to contribute:

We're currently offering an AIDS Walk SF charitable vgift in the 'Charity' section of the vgift store. There are three denominations available: $2, $5, and $10. 100% of your charitable vgift purchase will go to AIDS Walk SF.

If you live in the San Francisco area and you're already signed-up for the event, we invite you to join us on July 17th as we take to the street to promote a worthy cause! Message mike if you'd like to meet up to walk together.

Header design contest

Congratulations to jussy_baby, winner of this month's header design contest. You'll be seeing this lovely design displayed atop LiveJournal during the month of July. Speaking of header design contests, we previously mentioned that the contests will no longer be held on a monthly basis. Instead, the contests will be held a few times a year. Sit back, relax, and rest up because you'll need to scare up all your creative energies for our next header design contest. Oh wait, did we just give away the next contest theme? Well, the black cat's out of the candy bag so we may as well come clean.

The next header design contest theme is Halloween. The winning header will appear on LiveJournal throughout the month of October. We'll be accepting submissions for the Halloween header design contest from Monday, August 22nd, through Monday, September 19th. Don't worry about missing anything, we'll remind you a few more times in news before the contest starts.

Journal theme contest update

The three winning themes from our last design contest are scheduled to go live with our next update, which should be approximately three weeks from now. We'll keep you updated should any changes arise. Thanks again to the winners. The new journal themes will be a wonderful addition!

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of pic-a-nic baskets!

If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can send five free picnic baskets now until Monday, July 4th, at 4pm, PDT! You'll see both the free and the $0.99 gifts displayed until you've sent them to your friends. If you're not receiving vgifts (from friends and/or Frank), you may have disabled them. To enable vgifts, visit Edit profile (under Profile), scroll down to the bottom of the page, and check your settings. Make sure the box beside 'Disable sponsored only' is NOT checked! Enjoy!

For news about LJ_Scribe and LJ_Photophile, we'll see you under the cut!

Photo of the week

Click here to help choose the next photo of the week. FYI: We pick entries for the poll based on a combination of comments, +1 ratings, and staff input. The winner receives 500 LJ tokens. We thank you for sharing your talent with the global LiveJournal community.

Welcome back, dear scribes!

Congratulations to kitterific, majorjune, and sapphire_3! who won prompt #18 of our LJ_Scribe contest! We've selected 6 finalists in response to our 19th prompt for your review. In addition to the joy of sharing your well-turned phrases, the top three finalists will each win 1,000 LJ Tokens. The remaining finalists will receive 500 LJ Tokens.

For our next contest, please respond to the following in any form you choose (no more than 250 words, excluding the prompt): "Sorry to bother you in the middle of dinner." You do not need to include the prompt in your writing. Be sure to post your submissions as entries, rather than comments, to lj_scribe up through Tuesday, July 5th, at 4PM, PDT. You'll find the +1 rating link under each post, so remember to check back and vote for your favorites!

Have a safe and sane (or your preferred equivalent) holiday weekend! See you next time!

Welcome to the new LiveJournal

Some changes have been made to LiveJournal, and we hope you enjoy them! As we continue to improve the site on a daily basis to make your experience here better and faster, we would greatly appreciate your feedback about these changes. Please let us know what we can do for you!